While I was on holiday in the United States from Switzerland, I participated in a twoweek transformational workshop in the California desert with fifteen other people. The workshop activities enabled me to face my childhood fears. At one point, we attendees were on silent retreat in our hotel for three days. This isolation, combined with thinking about my youth, caused me to have insomnia. One night, after finally getting to sleep, I awoke from a dream in which a wild beast was attacking me. I knew this dream was related to the fears I was trying to face, instead of running away from them as I had in the past.
After the dream I couldn’t get back to sleep, so at about 4:00 in the morning I went outside to soak in the hot tub in the garden. I was thinking about how, during these three days of silence, I had had many memories of my parents. I remembered that they never made time to spend with me and did not give me any physical warmth. During my early childhood, I did not feel that my mother wanted or loved me.
Before going on this retreat, I had always tried to be strong and brave in my daily life. I did not permit myself to have fears or to be weak. I never asked for love from anyone. But now, sitting in the hot tub, I found myself asking for help. As I soaked in the soothing waters, I started to reflect on a question: What is love? So I asked God, “Please show me what love is.”
Then it seemed as if I drifted into another world, where I saw many wild animals living peacefully together. This was a wonderful place, and I didn’t want to leave it. But my reverie was interrupted by the sensation of something licking my hand. I turned around and was met by a pair of sparkling eyes looking into mine with such great tenderness that I felt no fear, even though they belonged to a wild coyote!
I have never been afraid of dogs.
Quite the opposite; I love them. But coming from Switzerland, I had never seen a wild dog in my entire life, and we don’t have coyotes in that part of the world.
When I looked into the coyote’s eyes as he licked my hand, my question was answered: This is love. In my dream that night, the wild beast had symbolized my fears. Now I felt that I was being given a chance to choose between living life with fear and living it with love as my constant companion. In that moment with the coyote, I chose love. This experience changed my attitude — and my whole life. I no longer had to push love away from me. It had come to me as an unexpected visitor in the night, and it would stay with me forever.